As the delays have mounted, drone enthusiasts have grown increasingly frustrated with the FAA. The new rules apply to commercial drone operators roughly the same requirements that non-commercial operators have already been subject to, with the additional requirement that commercial operators get a license. This is common sense—the safety risks of small aircraft have little to do with whether the pilot is flying for fun or will sell the pictures the drone takes. It’s fair to require a somewhat more onerous license for commercial use (just as for driver’s licenses).

The FAA’s announcement also says that it may propose different, more liberal, rules for drones that weigh under 4.4 lbs. Logical, but one would think that they could have done that by now, too.

Though commercial drone pilots will have to be licensed, the drones themselves will not require an airworthiness certificate. This lifts a large bureaucratic burden from drone manufacturers.

In a press conference this morning, transportation secretary Anthony Foxx and FAA administrator Michael Huerta both refused to say when they thought the new proposed rule might actually be implemented–probably because it could take years. Foxx and Huerta also dodged questions about how the FAA would even be able to know if rules are being violated. Huerta said the FAA’s first focus is on ensuring people know what the rules are.

For the foreseeable future, current regulations remain in place. The FAA may have rushed to release the new rules today–a Sunday morning in the middle of a holiday weekend–because an internal FAA cost-benefit study of the new rules was accidentally, momentarily, posted online a few days ago.

That study considers only four potential markets for small drones: “aerial photography,” “precision agriculture,” “search and rescue/law enforcement,” and “bridge inspection.” There are, of course, many more applications for drones than those. A long section of the study focuses on how far applicants will have to drive to apply for their drone pilot license, weighing the number of “round trip miles” they must travel against the lives saved when bridges are inspected with a drone instead of by someone crawling out onto the bridge, who might fall and die. The cost-benefit study is, by law, required, but it is also a vivid example of bureaucratic hoops that do little to actually advance sensible regulations.

There are thorny questions to address in how to create enforceable rules that allow drone flights and protect safety and privacy. But the delays in the FAA’s process appear to have little to do with actually answering those questions, and more to do with hurdling the same old bureaucratic stumbling blocks.